Gansu wind farm may threaten wild cat

A wind farm under construction in Zhangye, Gansu province, has drawn criticism over its potential threat to the Pallas’s cat. This nationally protected species lives mainly in Central Asia, on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and in the desert steppes of northern China.

On 14 October, the Chinese Field Conservation Alliance (CFCA), warned on WeChat that turbines being built at Cailongling in Zhangye put a key habitat at risk. The NGO’s post has since been removed.

In 2024, the 100-megawatt wind farm had won permission to be built. Its environmental impact assessment (EIA), approved by the district’s environment bureau in 2025, stated that there was no specially protected wildlife in the area. Construction began in July 2026.

CFCA says the EIA overlooked the Pallas’s cat and other protected species, and that some turbines approved for a particular site would actually be built elsewhere without a new assessment. It told Jiangsu News that four of the new turbines sit on a corridor linking the cats’ burrows to their foraging grounds.

The impact of wind farms on wildlife has been debated in China, particularly in desert areas, where many of the country’s large renewables farms are to be found.

Wind farm disturbance in the Hexi Corridor, where Zhangye is located, has increased dietary overlap between Pallas’s cats and red foxes, and pushed the cats to be more nocturnal, according to a 2025 study by the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

In response to the controversy, the district’s environment bureau said on 19 October that the project had completed all required approvals, adding that it will organise experts to survey the wildlife and assess the project’s ecological impact.

See our report on China’s offshore wind farms and the protection of birds.